New Zealand skipper Suzie Bates on Monday blamed her team's lacklustre batting display against the West Indies in the Women's World Cup Super Eight match and said they need to use the willow better to be successful in the tournament.

New Zealand skipper Suzie Bates on Monday blamed her team’s lacklustre batting display against the West Indies in the Women’s World Cup Super Eight match and said they need to use the willow better to be successful in the tournament.

“It is just disappointing that we perhaps haven’t managed anywhere near as well as we can in this tournament (with the bat). That is what wins you games, as batters stepping up in the top five and scoring runs,” Bates said at the post-match conference.

“So obviously disappointed today that none of the top five stepped up and it we left it to Rachel Priest and it was too much for her to do. If we wanna win the next game or be successful in this tournament, we have to step up with the bat,” she said.

New Zealand lost to the West Indies by 48 runs and the captain said the defeat was disappointing as it was like a semi-final clash.

“We were well aware that it was a huge game for us today that probably was the most disappointing thing. It was almost a semi-final. We didn’t turn up and play good cricket. So now we have really opened this Super Six stage up, which has given England another sniff and West Indies are now in the hunt.

“It’s going to come down to the last game and it’s going to be about some big matches. I guess that is what World Cups are about and unfortunately today’s loss has put us on the back foot. But we will get up, and England, we beat them in a warm-up match we will go in that match confidently,” she said.

She also blamed the bowlers for leaking runs at the death overs and said that allowed the Caribbean side to post a total of above 200 runs.

“I think it was a huge boost for them getting over 200. The last 10 overs we let them slip away. I thought we bowled well in periods but we were just inconsistent and when you get a score like 200 and lose early wickets, it definitely had an impact,” she said.

Asked about her decision to persist with spinners during slog overs, she said, “I thought the wicket was slowing. But perhaps against tail-enders it probably would have been, in hindsight, a good idea to bring back Lea (Tahuhu) and Nicola Browne a bit. But that was a decision we made in the middle, the wickets slowing and harder to get pace on ball.”

The Kiwis had a few decisions that did not favour them and Bates said, “That is cricket, there might have a few decisions we might have referred today, but they sort of come and go in the game of cricket but we were in a position to win the game, so unfortunately losing Sophie, who is an important player for us, put us on back foot. But the rest of us had a chance to step up and we didn’t do that today.”

“If we had got one partnership within first five batters, we could have got home quite easily but we just lost wickets, too close together and we just couldn’t get a partnership and they could squeeze the field and tight us up.”

“We believed that once we had 200 runs on the board, we believed that we could defend it as a team because the bowling attack which we have with spinners like Stafanie Taylor, Anisa Mohammed, Shanel Daley and (pacer) Tremayne Smartt, which definitely set the tone for us. We knew that once we had a good score on the board, we could defend it and that is exactly what we did,” she said.

On player-of-the-match Anisa Mohammed’s all-round display today, she said, “I have seen Anisa a lot. We believe she can clear the fence and she did that today. She lived up to the expectation of her team.”

“Anisa Mohammed, she went out there and executed (the plans) in all areas with bat and ball. After she went in there, she knew we had a target which was set. She went and did exactly what the team required her to do at that time. It was an all-round performance,” she added.

Number 10 batter Mohammed scored 31 in 32 balls with four fours to propel her team to 200 and had stitched up a 45-run partnership with Shanel Daley for the ninth wicket.

First Published on February 11, 2013 10:00 PM ISTLast updated on February 11, 2013 10:00 PM IST